s the
benignity of the god, and later on his character and personality, in an
adequate manner; and this power depends on the gradual acquisition of
mastery over form and material, of knowledge and observation of the
human body and face, and of the technical skill requisite to express
this knowledge in marble or bronze, or more precious materials such as
gold and ivory. All this development belongs to the history of art, not
to that of religion. But before we can pursue the investigation any
further, it is necessary to consider the different sources and channels
of religious influence on art with which we have to deal.

CHAPTER II

VARIOUS ASPECTS OF RELIGION

Religion, for our present purpose, may be considered as (1) popular, (2)
official, (3) poetic, and (4) philosophical. These four divisions, or
rather aspects, are not, of course, mutually exclusive, and they act and
react extensively upon one another; but, in their relations to art, it
is convenient to observe the distinction between them.

(1) The beliefs of the people are, of course, the basis of all the
others, though they come to be affected by these others in various
degrees. There is no doubt that the people generally believed in the
sanctity and efficacy of the shapeless idols or primitive images, and
this belief would tend to support hieratic conservatism, and thus to
hinder artistic progress. But, on the other hand, the people of Greece
showed throughout their history a tendency to an intensely and vividly
anthropomorphic imagination. This tendency was doubtless realised and
encouraged by the poets, but it was not created by them, any more than
by the mythologists who defined and systematised it. The exact relation
of this anthropomorphic imagination to the primitive sacred stocks and
stones is not easy to ascertain; but it seems to have tended, on the one
hand, to the realisation of the existence of the gods apart from such
sacred objects, and thus to reduce the stocks and stones to the position
of symbols--a great advance in religious ideals; and, on the other hand,
to the transformation of the stocks and stones into human form, not
merely by giving them ears and eyes that they might hear and see, but
also by making them take the image and character of the deity whom they
represented.

It was impossible for any ordinary Greek to think of the gods in other
than human form. He had, indeed, no such definite dogma as the Hebrew
statement that "